Driscoll 60, Latin 37
Too much poison.
Having scouted Driscoll a couple times, The Latin School's girls basketball coach Max Rouse knew Highlanders center Courtney Lindfors was lethal inside and that guard Gigi Digrazia was another key to Driscoll's success. So he had his team try and double up on Lindfors whenever possible in the first half of Monday's Class 2A sectional semifinal at Lisle.
The Romans (19-7) were actually quite successful, holding Lindfors to just 1 field goal and 3 points in the first half. But while giving so much attention in the paint, The Latin School left the perimeter open and Taylor Reaber hit a pair of early 3s and Alexandra Divito added one as Driscoll jumped head 15-8 in the first quarter.
Digrazia then nailed a trio of threes in the second quarter as Driscoll took a 28-14 lead at the half on its way to a 60-37 win that sends the 24-5 Highlanders into Thursday night's sectional championship game against the winner of Monday's late contest between Holy Trinity and Walther Lutheran.
"They have a great inside-outside game and Lindfors is a handful," Rouse said. "We wanted to try and focus on her and Gigi but the other kids really stepped up. With them it's kind of pick your poison."
With Driscoll dropping in six 3-pointers in the first half, it didn't matter that Lindfors was not a big part of the offense. And when the 6-foot-4 sophomore got free for 5 field goals in the second half to finish with 14 points, 11 rebounds and 3 blocked shots, the Romans could not keep up.
"It was hard because we didn't know anything about them," said Lindfors, who helped Driscoll beat St. Edward on a historic night on Saturday night. "We were maybe too pumped up since we had never won a regional. Now this (sectional final) is going to be exciting."
Taylor Reaber finished with three 3-pointers for 12 points, and Digrazia and Bridget Delboccio each tallied 10 points to join Lindfors and give Driscoll four players scoring in double figures.
"They double-teamed Courtney inside so we needed other people to step up and hit from the outside," Driscoll coach Steve McCuiston said. "I thought we shot with confidence."
-- Stan Goff
Lyons 61, Naperville North 49: Over the past month of the season, the Naperville North Huskies have been a different team.
With wins in four of their last ten games and two of their previous three, the Huskies entered Monday night's regional matchup against Lyons Township on a high.
But after holding the lead for a majority of the first half, the Huskies ultimately fell 61-49 in the opening round of the Hinsdale Central regional.
Naperville North (6-22) fell victim to an explosive third quarter for the Lions, who outpaced the Huskies 19-10 to take a 47-34 lead heading to the final period.
"Giving up 19 in a quarter is a killer for us. Ten's our number," Huskies coach Jay Wachtel said. "If we can keep it to 10, that's tough. They were figuring out our zone trap, so I wanted to go man-to-man, and I think we were kind of a step behind.
"We didn't get our feet in front of them and turn the ball enough, and we didn't get enough rebounds and make them miss enough."
Lyons took a 36-26 lead with 5:20 remaining in the third quarter on center Jill Keeve's layup, part of her game-high 19 points.
Six-foot junior Molly Barry also stung the Huskies, scoring 10 points and grabbing 6 rebounds as Naperville North struggled most of the game to combat the Lions' size and strength.
"Their post players were tough for us," Wachtel said. "They just totally dominated us rebounding-wise in the first half."
Lyons pushed its lead to 17 points early in the fourth quarter, continually breaking through the Huskies' press for easy baskets on the other end.
For Wachtel, though, this year's satisfaction comes in the improvement across the final month -- facilitated mostly by an increase in leadership from the six Naperville North seniors.
"I feel like in the past month we've been (taking) a step forward, step forward, step forward," Wachtel said. "Tonight it was kind of back to a January 10 team, or whatever we were at that point.
"(The seniors) kind of took control of the situation and said 'we're going to make some changes in attitude and things like that,' and it worked. We were kind of a different team there for a month … and I attribute a lot of that as an attitude thing to the seniors."
Senior Erica Schertz ended her career strongly, notching a double-double with 14 points and 10 rebounds.
-- Matthew McClarey
Willowbrook 49, Addison Trail 35: Angela Domin meant much more to the Willowbrook girls basketball team than her final offensive statistics showed.
The junior guard spearheaded a defensive clinic by the Warriors Monday night in the play-in game of the Class 4A Willowbrook regional in Villa Park.
Pitted against conference and district rival Addison Trail, Willowbrook harassed the Blazers into a 2-for-20 performance from the field, which resulted in a mere 5 first-half points for the visitors.
The Warriors withstood a second-half onslaught triggered by the Blazers' Erica Spear and turned back Addison Trail for the third time this season with a 49-35 victory.
The No. 13-seeded Warriors (13-17) advance to meet third-seeded Proviso East tonight in semifinal action.
Addison Trail, the No. 19 seed, closed out its season at 6-22.
"We played our zone better than we ever have before," Domin said. "I think we executed very well tonight."
Domin (8 points) grabbed all 5 of her rebounds in the opening quarter, triggered the fastbreak with 4 steals and helped put the game away with 4 of her 6 blocked shots in the final quarter.
"I thought (Domin) was awesome," Willowbrook coach Troy Nelson said. "We got off to a good start as a result (of her play)."
Collette Williams, who led Willowbrook with 18 points, scored 10 in the opening half to help stake the Warriors to a 19-5 lead at the intermission.
But the third quarter was the antithesis for the Blazers on the offensive end.
Scoring nearly four times as many points as they had in the first half, the team in general and Spear in particular found the range.
Spear went on a tear in the third quarter, scoring 12 of her game-high 20 points in the run.
The senior added two more 3-pointers in the fourth to close out her career.
"Our coach (Rob Schader) told us at halftime, 'For some of you this could very well be your last half of basketball,'" Spear said. "It made me realize I had to leave it all on the floor. I didn't want any regrets.
"It was a rough loss."
-- Kevin McGavin
Glenbard East 44, West Chicago 38:ŒGlenbard East's Kelsey Taylor had a gut feeling that Monday night's Conant regional game against West Chicago was going to be a battle.
And her gut proved to be right as the Rams went on to win 44-38 to advance in the regional and face the fourth-seeded hosts today at 7:30.
"This was the third time we faced West Chicago so we both had some time to make some adjustments," Taylor said. "We knew that this game was going to be a battle. It was a back and forth game and it was really scrappy. Fortunately for us we were the scrappier team. It was an ugly win but nonetheless, it was still a win."
The Rams (10-17) did the little things a team needs to do to win a tight ball game.
First, they took better care of the ball as East forced the Wildcats into 27 turnovers while committing only 12 itself. In a 6-point ballgame, 15 more possessions can make all the difference, and it did for the Rams.
"We were trying to really pressure the ball and get in the passing lanes," East coach Nicole Miller said. "I think that we did an excellent job disrupting their offense tonight and not letting them do what they wanted on that end of the floor. Plus we got some easy buckets in transition."
"They overplayed all night long," Wallner said. "We made a lot of bad decisions and we telegraphed a lot of passes tonight."
Another aspect of the game the Rams did better than the Wildcats (2-25) was at the free throw line. East shot 18-for-30 (60 percent) -- not a great percentage, but better than the Wildcats did. West Chicago shot just 8 of 30.
"We normally shoot around 50 to 55 percent from the line," West Chicago coach Kim Wallner said. "That would be an extra 8 or 9 points if we shot what we normally do. Tonight, that would have been the difference in the game. We needed to make our free throws and we didn't."
Miller said she was fortunate that her team made just enough free throws to squeak out the game and advance.
"I was thinking after the game; I was glad that we shot what we did from the line because it could have been interesting if they made just a few more," Miller said.
Taylor scored a game-high 16 points despite having the Wildcats play a box-and-one to try and stop her from touching the ball and Ashley Farrell grabbed a game-high 8 rebounds in the win.
Kayla Radloff scored a team-high 12 points while Emily Paschke chipped in with 10 points in the loss.
-- Jason Watt
Proviso West 61, Glenbard North 53:ŒGlenbard North (6-22) lost the Class 4A Fenwick regional quarterfinal despite Megan Ney's 15 points.
Downers North 39, East Aurora 34:ŒMelissa Blazej's 10 points helped the Trojans (11-15) pull out the victory in the Class 4A Naperville Central regional quarterfinal.